RV Tips, a Problem & a Solo Hike: Roadtrek Zion Campervan in Whistler

Hi everybody! So it's a Saturday in mid-March and this is kind of an impulsive last-minute trip for us. It's a beautiful weekend. It's going to be warm. It's finally starting to feel like spring. Today it's 16 degrees and tomorrow it's going to be close to 20. So very much from freezing temperatures at least at night to warm temperatures now during the day. So we're kind of pleased to see that. And because it's going to be so nice and warm here, we've decided to drive up into the mountains where there's some snow. So we're heading back to Whistler for the weekend where it'll still be warmer than normal but still lots of snow. And the other thing we'll do in this video is I'll talk about some of the things that we do to prepare for kind of like a last-minute overnight or weekend trip. Because we are hiking RV, we do actually have a hike that I did last weekend just up into near the Garibaldi Park area up in the snow. It was a lot of fun, just some beautiful scenery. So we'll share that with you. If you're more interested in that, you can just skip to roughly the last 10 minutes of this video. Here we are in Whistler and it's 13 degrees. It's the start of spring break and we don't have any reservations. So we're not sure if there's going to be any space at the Riverside campground in Whistler but we will try. Here we are at our site. We're among all the big rigs because we have a pull-through site and we were lucky this was the last one that was available. I think it's delusions of grandeur. We think we're bigger than we are. Somehow looks funny with Gordon in his shorts. Trail is covered in snow. This is the Nicholas North golf course but it's closed for the season. There's a nice patio restaurant and it's got beautiful views of the lake and the mountains. We decided to go RV camping for an overnight for the weekend at about 9 30 this morning. So that's when all the flurry of activity started. So what I do is I take out my handy dandy reminder list on my phone. Some of you might have other reminders and checklists that you use. Maybe you can share it here. Mine is pretty simple so I'm not that tech savvy when it comes to using different apps. So the reminder list is a great way to keep track of all the things that you need to bring with you and also all the things that you have to do before you leave your house. Like close the blinds and turn off the lights that sort of thing. In terms of food we don't really need a lot for an overnight trip. For instance this time we're coming to Whistler so you know there's a cafe at the campground and it's also walking distance to restaurants and grocery stores and things like that. So if we forget anything we can always pop out and buy something. I just pack up usually whatever I have in the fridge. I like to clean the vegetables and the fruits beforehand so that I don't have to use water in the van once I'm in the van. I used to cut everything and prepare it but now I think I'm getting lazy and I just basically just wash the vegetables whole and then when I'm in the van I can just cut it up and prepare everything. And we always pack our items in soft-sided duffel bags or shopping bags that fold flat so they don't take up much room in the van. Well we have a problem. It's not a huge major problem but it is a problem in terms of our sleeping comfort and we may have to leave actually. But what's happened is our seatbelts on the back seats got lodged in the mechanism of the sliding sofa here. It's just jammed right in here so we can't seem to lower the sofa. It's just clicking and it's not doing anything. Again we're not handy people so we couldn't find any tools. Nothing really came with the van so Gordon's gone over to the store here to see if they have any kind of tools that we could borrow or buy to loosen the nuts and bolts down there so that we can get the seatbelt out and hopefully the mechanism will work. Good morning everyone. So Gordon did last night go over to the store to see if he could borrow some tools and he did. He came back and tried to unscrew the the sofa down there to release the seatbelt that's stuck in the mechanism and unfortunately none of the tools worked so we had to leave the sofa as it is. Gordon actually slept back here on the couch this way and then I put the board in the middle and put the cushions down and slept like this next to Precious. I didn't sleep as well this time as Gordon did. Gordon slept quite well and he said it was actually warmer sleeping this way because we have the sofa back up and it actually presents prevents the draft from coming through from the back doors. Hopefully we didn't burn out the motor then if that's the case then we'll have to to get someone to look at it particularly because the road track warranty has disappeared on us and so we're going to have to pay for any maintenance that's being done. So Gordon bought us breakfast from the cafe here at the campground. It opens at seven o'clock in the morning. So two vegan breakfasts, some baked beans, some fresh fruit, tomatoes, fried tomatoes, fried up mushrooms, a lot of spinach underneath there and then some home fries. And something green for St. Patrick's Day. Along with my hat. So we're going for our morning walk. Beautiful morning. Crisp about minus three or so. We just left the Riverside RV Resort and heading out of Whistler. We had a good stay other than the unusual sleeping arrangement that we had and we're hoping to get our sofa fixed either today by ourselves or if not we'll have to take it to a dealer or get an RV technician to look after that. And now as promised here's a video of Gordon's solo hiking trip up to Barrier Lake at Garibaldi Provincial Park. So good morning. It's early March. Beautiful day. Sunny. Cold. I'm sort of halfway to Whistler heading up partway to Garibaldi Lake. I'm not going to do the whole trip. Just started too late. Mickey's not with me. She banged up her leg yesterday. So home recovering. And now I'm charging up the, well actually the access road which is not usually the most exciting. It's a couple kilometers and that's just to get to the trailhead where we'd normally start the hike. But it's pleasant. I'm the only one here today. Lots of people up here but the only one here on the road. And won't go the whole trip. Probably go about halfway to a viewpoint today. Again just simply because we started too, or I started too late. But it's a beautiful day. Looking forward to being up in the snow and in the mountains once again. And I'm breathing heavy. It's all uphill at the beginning. Don't need snowshoes in this part. Trail's very packed down from other people either hiking in or skiers coming in and out. So I'll trade into snowshoes farther on if I need it. You can see I brought them along. So I'm stopping here and putting on my micro spike. Still don't need snowshoes because the trail as you can see has been, the snow's been squished down. And not nearly as much snow in here because of the trees. There's probably a good meter in the open areas but only a few a few centimeters inside the trees right here. But this is just ice. I started to go up it and I started to slide back down. I could put on my snowshoes and they have really strong crampons. Or I can put on my micro spikes which are just easier. I'm going to do that because I really actually started up. I started to slide back down which is better than the alternative which was down there. So I'm going to put those on right now and then carry on. Unfortunately they're probably near the bottom of my pack. I didn't know if I'd need them or not. They're much better for icy conditions than something like yak tracks. Yak tracks are great in less icy conditions but you can see these have actually little crampons and they're very easy to put on. Most important thing, find the section that says front. Otherwise they don't go on quite so easily. Okay that's a barrier in front of me about 10.5k from where I parked. All uphill but a nice day. Temperature right now is just a bit above freezing so there's a little dripping on the trees. Just a gorgeous spot. Some of the video I showed earlier was down at the base of this. So quite a majestic piece of rock. Down that way there's some mountains Cloudburst I think is one of them. You can't see through the trees. actually. About three kilometers more is Garibaldi lake. You can pretty well cross all the lakes, at least the edges right now. It's frozen and very very safe. Lots of people just passed a gorgeous day. I'm going to take a break and go for lunch at about 11k mark. Normally it's about three kilometers. Well actually quite a bit less than that because I had to start from the highway effectively when I hiked over here. Very nice. Straps broke. Fortunately I can wear my mini crampons out from here. The deeper snow back there I needed the snowshoes here. Not so much. It's all compressed. I just had my lunch here. I'm going to head back down. You've seen some in some of our previous videos you've seen this particular viewpoint but not with typically as much snow as is here right now. It's 2 30 in the afternoon and it's late enough I'm going to turn around and head back. Just a gorgeous day. Got a little bit cloudy but still really nice. Mickey didn't get to join me today as I mentioned earlier but I did send her. You should get cell phone reception here. So I sent her a short video just to show her what she's missing. I had one problem as I was going down to the little bluff just down over there. My snowshoe came off. The straps at the back broke. I'll be fine though because the trail here is fine and compressed and I'll be able to hike out just with my mini crampons that I put back on. The trail is really quite icy and slippery but it's all compressed. There's not a lot of deep subscribe. See you next time.